A man of middle age,
sandy beard and thinning sandy hair,
white skin,
stands unblinking before a chair like a throne.
A Haitian with no legs
sits there.
The two talk in silence,
without moving their lips.
"You are ready to depart, Dr. Bell?"
"I am ready."
"You understand your instructions?"
"Yes."
"On whom will you call?"
"I will call on Decatus Molicoeur."
"Where does he live?"
"In Port-au-Prince."
"Where in Port-au-Prince?"
"Turgeau."
"Where in Turgeau?"
"Number twenty-three Rue Coiron."
"Close your eyes."
The white man's eyes stop staring. Those of the legless man glow red.
"I am telling you to do something, Dr. Bell. What am I telling you to do?"
"To kneel."
"Why are you not kneeling, then?"
Dr. Bell kneels.
"Open your eyes."
The eyes open.
"Get up."
Dr. Bell rises.
"What will you tell Decatus Molicoeur when he is kneeling before you?"
"I will tell him to kill."
"Kill whom?"
"The president."
The legless one nods.
"You seem to have learned well, my friend. Let's hope you have also learned to obey. Your guide is waiting outside. Now, go."
2
Nothing much had changed.
He had been away more than two years, yet his last journey over this road from the airport to the city might have been yesterday, for all the difference he could discern. True, he had tried out his Creole on the Haitian cab driver and found it rusty, but he had expected that. To stay fluent in a language, you had to use it, and you sure couldn't use Haitian Creole in Vermont. He would have to re-learn it if the hunt for Mildred's father took them into the boonies.
He thought of Kay Gilbert. Beautiful, loving, crazy Kay Gilbert. To become fluent in Creole—he for his AID job in agriculture and she for her nursing at the Schweitzer—they had sometimes agreed to speak no English for a whole evening. Not even in bed. Was she still at the Schweitzer? He had never written. Why keep the memory alive when he would never be seeing her again?
("All you really wanted, Sam Norman, was someone to sleep with, wasn't it? Well, to hell with you. To hell with you twice over, and from now on kindly stay out of my life!")
She'd been wrong, of course. Sleeping with her was by no means all he had wanted. But who could argue with a furious Kay Gilbert?
He stopped remembering and looked at the woman beside him. She was beautiful, too. Taller than Kay, and blonde; Kay had the blackest hair in creation. But this woman was even more likely to win a beauty contest. Except that, being the daughter of a world renowned teacher of philosophy, she would of course never dream of entering one.
Unaware of his silent appraisal, she frowned through the window on her side at the massed shacks of La Saline, the city's worst slum. She hadn't been prepared for such squalor, he guessed. Being her father's daughter, she had read up on Haiti when Daddy announced his intention of spending the summer here, but reading about a La Saline and seeing one were not the same. Could reading about the smell of rotting garbage, donkey dirt, and human urine prepare you for such a bouquet—plus, all at once, the unexpected, glorious aroma of roasting coffee? This road from the airport to Port-au-Prince passed through some of the worst poverty in the Caribbean.
Slowed by outrageous potholes, the taxi crept past a black woman riding side-saddle on a donkey which was a mass of sores and wore an expression of eternal sadness. The ancient baskets bumping its washboard ribs were filled with charcoal. The woman saw Mildred staring at her and waved. From one dusty foot dangled a worn leather sandal.
Sam laughed.
Startled, Mildred turned her head to look at him. "It's nothing. Just the sandal. Something that happened once."
If Kay were here now, would she laugh too? Why, for God's sake, hadn't he written to her at least once, if only to find out whether she really had been that furious? Was she still at the hospital?
What difference did it make? He wouldn't have time to look her up, anyway. Classes had already begun back in Vermont. As soon as they located Milly's father, the three of them would be winging back there.
Mildred continued to look at him, waiting for him to say more. When conversing with this lady, you were not expected to leave things dangling; her esteemed daddy never did. Annoyed at last by his continued silence, she shrugged her shapely shoulders and went back to peering out the window.
Deciding there was nothing new to see, Sam shut his eyes. After all, he had spent two years in this West Indian land of voodoo, poverty, problems, and passion. Port-au-Prince, to his way of thinking, was the least interesting part of Haiti, anyway. Only when he felt the cab slowing to a crawl and making an acute left turn did he open his eyes again.
They had arrived.
The Pension Calman was where he had left it, he was glad to find out. As before, it was almost directly across the Champ-de-Mars from the Palais National. The big central park was brown and dusty. There was need of rain, it seemed. The palace, as always, was a shimmering white mausoleum fronted by khaki-clad soldiers on sentry duty. Home in years past of Papa Doc Duvalier, who had been president for life and had died recently, it was now the abode of Papa's son Jean Claude, who was also president for life and seemed likely to live a long time.
"What are we stopping here for?" The Calman was obviously not the sort of hostel for which Mildred had prepared herself—was, in fact, only a very old private home converted into a guest house. Gingerbread trim was everywhere. Gray paint flaking off to expose wood on which termites were having a feast. A high stone wall with stone columns flanking the driveway entrance, a rusty iron gate hanging open. The yard inside was paved with red bricks so ludicrously uneven that the house appeared to be an ancient ocean-going ferry kicking up waves.
"This is it, Milly."
"You sent Daddy here?"
"It's what he asked for."
("Under no circumstances, Sam, do I want to go to one of those plush tourist hotels I've been reading about. You understand? Do you know of some small pension where I won't have to waste time dressing for meals and talking to strangers?")
("I know just the place, sir. Used to go there myself every time I hit the city for a few days." Which had been about once a month, because all work and no play in the south-coast town of Jacmel, dealing with barefoot farmers and hearing only Creole spoken, could make Jack a very dull boy.)
Sliding out of the cab, he stepped around to open her door, then watched the driver lift their luggage from the trunk and paid him. Trying his Creole again with a generous tip—"Sa sé pou ou, compêre"—he got a grin full of white teeth and a quick, "Merci ampil, M'sieu!" in reply. The fellow carried the bags into the pension's big front parlor and set them down. He grinned again and departed. The parlor was empty except for Sam and Mildred. They stood there, waiting.
After a while Sam called out tentatively, "Hello! Anyone home?"
From somewhere in back, a voice answered, "Coming!" and a patter of footsteps followed. Into the room bustled a short, fragile, almost bald man in black pants, white sneakers, and an immaculate white shirt with a black bow tie. Jerking to a halt, he thrust his head forward like a turtle and voiced a yell of delight. "Sam Norman!"
"Victor Vieux!"
The Calman's owner rushed forward and clapped his hands on Sam's arms. He stood there shaking Sam in a way that surely would have loosened some roots had Sam been a tree.
"Victor, this is Miss Mildred Bell."
Vieux stepped back and looked at her. "Dr. Bell's daughter?" He put out his hand. "My pleasure, M'selle."
"What about her father?" Sam asked.
Vieux nodded gravely. "Just as soon
as I have taken you to your rooms." He reached for the luggage, but was not as young and husky as the cab driver and could not handle three bags at once. Sam quickly grabbed his own, and then followed Vieux and Mildred up the wide, curving staircase. The carpet was threadbare, he noticed. The wallpaper was peeling. Maybe the place had been as shabby before but he just hadn't noticed. Mildred Bell had not been with him then.
"You have other guests, Victor?"
"At the moment, no."
They went along the upstairs hall and the little proprietor stopped at a white door with a tarnished brass number 4 on it. "For you, Sam, the room you always used. Remember?"
"You bet." (Did Kay still remember?)
"The door is open. Just go in and make yourself at home, eh? I am putting Miss Bell in five. These two bags are yours, Miss Bell?"
"Yes."
Sam watched them go down the hall to the room Kay had always used when she came to town from the Schweitzer. She had come in about as often as he had from Jacmel. The American, Dr. Mellon, had built the hospital out in the country because that was where the neediest people were, but there was little out there for a nurse to do on her day off.
He stepped into his room and looked at the bed.
Above it on the wail was the same framed photograph of the sacred voodoo waterfall at Saut d'Eau, clipped from an old Life magazine. He put his bag down, shut the door, walked to the bed, and stretched out on it.
Kay, baby … remember? When he shut his eyes and put his hand out, she was right there. He could feel her there.
He had first met her here in the Calman. "Kay, I want you to know a good friend of mine," Victor Vieux had said. "He's a Yankee, like you, working on that agricultural thing near Jacmel. Sam, Miss Kay. Gilbert. One of Dr. Mellon's nurses at the Schweitzer."
Weather permitting, you ate your meals outdoors at the Calman: out there in the backyard on that rolling red-brick sea. One of the tables stood under a tropical almond tree whose big, gaudy leaves were likely to come floating down without warning and land on your plate. A leaf had fallen between them that evening and both had reached for it, catching each other's hands. A mere beginning but a good one. He even remembered the meal: breadfruit croquettes and a fish stew that Victor lovingly called court bouillon. The Calman was not renowned for the quality of its food. Only for the warmth of its owner's friendship.
Reluctantly, he got off the bed and shucked his jacket and tie, shifting his wallet to a hip pocket of the brown slacks he wore. There came a tapping of knuckles on his door.
"Sam? Can we go downstairs now?"
"Sure." He had the door open at once. Mildred was anxious to talk to Victor, of course. He was surprised to find her still wearing the gray wool dress she had traveled in. In such an outfit she must feel herself in a sauna here. With Mildred, first things always came first.
"I don't want to rush you, Sam, but—"
"No problem. You don't want to change into something cool?"
"Later."
They found the Calman's proprietor waiting for them in the downstairs parlor. He had drawn three chairs in a triangle around a small table which held three glasses of something pink. He rose and beckoned them to join him. "Marie will have some food ready for you in a few minutes. I'm sure you want to talk first." The three of them sat and he leaned toward Mildred. "Now, Miss Bell, to answer your questions…"
"There's only one, really. Where is my father?"
"I can only tell you where he should be. Whether or not he actually got there, no one can say without going there."
"We can't reach him by telephone? Or send a wire?"
"There isn't even a road." Vieux turned to Sam. "You know the mountains south of Fort Liberté. The Massif du Nord. You rode in there once with that U.N. fellow and mailed me a letter from Vallière, just to see if I'd ever get it."
Sam nodded. "Ah, yes. The famous letter."
"Dr. Bell's destination was a place beyond Vallière, even more remote. Have you ever heard of a man named Margal?"
"I don't think so, Victor."
"He is a bocor, a sorcerer, who seems to have made quite a name for himself in the past year or so—like that fellow Fenelon you clashed with in Jacmèl." Vieux shifted-his gaze back to Mildred. "Your father, Miss Bell, heard about this Margal at a voodoo affair in Croix-des-Bouquets. That's in the Cul de Sac, not far from here. A man named Ti Pierre Bastien, whom he hired originally as a driver and interpreter, volunteered to take him into the Massif du Nord to visit the fellow. I saw a good deal of Bastien. He hung around here a lot. I didn't like him. Didn't trust him, perhaps I should say. But Dr. Bell would not listen to me."
Sam said, "You mean you tried to talk him out of going?"
"I did. Those mountains are not for people who know nothing about this country and don't even speak the peasants' language."
Sam recalled the last letter Mildred had received from her father. No mention of an impending journey—perhaps he hadn't made up his mind at that time—but there had been a hint of something brewing. "I am hoping soon to meet a man whose reputation for possessing truly remarkable psychic powers is widespread. I cannot tell you more than this at the moment, but I am working on it." That letter had arrived in Vermont more than a month ago, and since then, nothing. Before the sudden silence he had written weekly; and he had planned to return for the start of classes.
"You told me on the phone, Victor, that Dr. Bell left here on the seventh of August." Today was the nineteenth of September.
"Correct."
"He and this fellow Bastien?"
"He and Bastien, in a rented jeep. Their plan was to drive to Trou and hire animals there for the rest of the journey." Turning to Mildred, Victor explained that Trou was a town on the north coast between Cap Haitien and Fort Liberté. "When 1 heard nothing for what seemed too long a time, I telephoned the police at Trou. They got that far. The jeep is there. But the only way to trace them farther is to go there."
"The police will not look for them?" Mildred asked.
"I'm afraid I have to say, 'Why should they?' Miss Bell. In any case, Trou is a very small place. I doubt the police there would be able to send out a search party."
"I just can't imagine my father doing this kind of thing, Mr. Vieux." Mildred looked at Sam.
Sam knew the reason for the look. Riding off into Haiti's high-mountain wilderness was the sort of thing Sam Norman would do for kicks, and had done, in fact, more than once. But it was the kind of behavior Dr. Roger Bell had been quick to criticize. "I can't see much compatibility between you and my daughter, Norman. The two of you are poles apart in temperament. Now she tells me you want to give up teaching and take a forestry job with some paper company, which would never suit her, of course. She just isn't the outdoor type." This, when Daddy, sensing there might be something brewing between them, had decided to put a quick stop to it. "Are you laughing at me by any chance, Mr. Norman?" Nobody at the college laughed with impunity at Roger Bell.
"Not at you, sir. Just at your idea that I might be contemplating marriage." Did I ask you for your daughter's hand, Daddy? All I've done is take her out a few times.
"So what will you do?" Victor Vieux was asking. Sam wrenched himself back from the campus. "Show me Margal's village on a map, will you?"
"It isn't on any map I have. But I can show you about where to find it."
The drinks on the table were still untouched, and while Victor went across the room to a bookcase, Sam handed one glass to Mildred and lifted another to his lips. It was Rhum Barbancourt with lime and grenadine, and it gave him a needed lift.
When he returned, Victor moved the third glass to the floor and spread an oil-company map marked "Carte de la République d'Haiti" on the table.
"According to Bastien, the place is called Legrun. It's a few miles south of Bois Sauvage here." The village he pointed to was surrounded by a roadless wilderness of mountains.
"And they went in from Trou, you say." Sam looked at Mildred. "Here's Trou, up near
the coast, Milly."
"It must be miles." The note of hopelessness in her voice came through loud and clear.
"And very rough going, you can be sure," Victor said.
"But we have to do it, Sam. We can't just sit here and wait."
"I have to do it. Not you."
"Uh-uh." She shook her head. "I'm not helpless. I can ride, and I've actually done some mountain climbing."
"Where?"
"Well, I've climbed Marcy and Whiteface in the Adirondacks."
"Marcy and Whiteface. Ah, yes." Sam tried to keep his voice even. "Milly, those are civilized mountains for hobby hikers. If you think Haiti's Massif du Nord—"
"If Daddy did it, I can do it."
"Victor, tell her it's no trip for a woman."
"He's right, Miss Bell. Besides, climbing a mountain the way you mean is not the same as hanging onto the back of an animal while he—"
"That's enough, please, both of you." Mildred rose suddenly. "He's my father, and I came here to find him, not to sit around a hotel while someone else does. May we have something to eat, Mr. Vieux?"
Abruptly donning an expression of blank neutrality, the little man with the black bow tie obediently led them into the garden. Was it coincidence that he seated them at the same table Kay Gilbert and Sam had used the day he introduced them to each other? Sam glanced up at the almond tree with its canopy of multicolored leaves. Then as he held Mildred's chair for her, he found himself gazing at the precise center of the round table where the leaf had come looping down and he and Kay had caught each other's hands while reaching for it.
The chairs were different colors. Mildred chose a cool blue one. Sam walked around the table and took a bright yellow enameled one opposite her. Victor Vieux excused himself and returned to the house.
"Sam," Mildred said after a short stillness, "I hope you don't think I'm being unreasonable."
He shrugged. "It's strictly up to you, Milly." After all, he was here in her interest, not his own. ("I'm frightened, Sam," she had said. "He promised to write at least once a week, and it's now more than a month. He would never do that unless he couldn't help it. Will you fly down there with me to find out what's happened?" And when he had hesitated: "Sam, you've worked in Haiti. It would be so much easier, with you to advise me.")
A Haunting of Horrors: A Twenty-Novel eBook Bundle of Horror and the Occult Page 187